Many different techniques have been proposed for sensing the pressure and/or temperature in catheters and fluid cartridges, and for delivering this information to an operator so that he or she is aware of pressure and temperature conditions associated with a catheter or a cartridge and any fluid, such as blood flowing therein.
In medical apparatus, as well as other applications, disposable sensors are required which can be implemented in a cost-effective manner. Typical pressure sensors are not particularly well suited to such applications by virtue of the relatively high number of component parts, expensive materials and/or processing requirements, and high number of manufacturing-processing steps required to produce the sensors and to integrate them into the instrumentation or apparatus of the application.
There is a continuing need to provide pressure sensors for single use/disposable pressure sensing applications, such as medical applications, which can be manufactured and integrated into apparatus more efficiently and/or at lower cost.
The embodiments disclosed herein therefore directly address the shortcomings of present pressure sensors providing a low cost disposable pressure sensor that may be suitable for many price sensitive applications.